Greens move to heal immigration reform rift

Several environmental groups say their new stance emerged after talks with labor groups. | Reuters

In 1997-98, the Sierra Club faced a mutiny from within its own ranks over whether to end a long-standing position of neutrality on immigration. The question: whether to back a new stance favoring “an end to U.S. population growth at the earliest possible time through reduction in natural increase (births minus deaths)” and “through reduction in net immigration.”

Several environmental heavyweights, including former Kennedy and Johnson administration Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, Earth Day founder and former Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Gaylord Nelson, Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson and Earth First co-founder Dave Foreman, spoke up for the ballot initiative.

Text Size

-

+

reset

But it went down by a 60 percent to 40 percent margin.

Some greens tried again in 2004, this time by pushing a slate of anti-immigrant candidates, including former Colorado Democratic Gov. Richard Lamm, to serve on the Sierra Club’s board of directors. After more heated debate, Lamm and his allies were rejected in one of the largest turnouts for board voting in the club’s more than 100-year old history.

Both votes raised difficult questions about race. The Los Angeles Times reported before the final 1998 vote that some greens worried that the Sierra Club taking an anti-immigration position “would expose the club to charges of racism and elitism and alienate politicians who have been friends on such issues as logging and wetlands protection.”

“Concerns about perception were well founded,” explained a former Sierra Club official active in the 2004 fight. “And I think they still haunt the organization.”

The Sierra Club’s critics say the environmental group has skirted population issues because it doesn’t want to anger some of its largest donors. They say the group now is just shilling to win more Democratic voters.

“I believe they have morphed from environmentalist into politicians,” Lamm said in an email, noting that population remains “an indispensable part of any environment program.”

“Whatever the Sierra Club and other groups are fighting for, it will be lost by mass immigration. How is doubling our population consistent with any environmental goals?” he said.

“This is political quackery. The Sierra Club has got its head up its you know what,” said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a conservative group founded by a former Sierra Club activist that’s now leading opposition to the Senate’s immigration bill.

An environmentalist not connected to the Sierra Club said the group’s new position favoring immigration reform helps in “exorcising” itself from its past battles. “Internally, it’s been viewed as an embarrassment,” the source said.

Boxer said she doesn’t care where the Sierra Club and other environmentalists once were on immigration. “That was years ago,” she said. “They’re changing. The country does move forward. One thing if you look at any part of American history is that as the years go by, we get more inclusive and they have embraced this. I think it’s a good step for them.”

“I think it has shown a maturity with the groups. That’s my assessment anyway,” said Sen. Tom Udall, the New Mexico Democrat whose late father Stewart often spoke publicly about the connection between immigration and population issues. After Stewart Udall left the Johnson Cabinet, he cut an ad for free for Planned Parenthood.

“He was just very interested in seeing that we got some control on population,” Tom Udall said. “He got a little bit of ribbing because he had six kids.”

Tom Udall, who is in favor of the Senate moving an immigration reform package, said his father’s perspective still deserves to be part of the debate. “I think we should have a discussion about where we’re headed on population because every single one of the pressing issues we face has a population component,” he said.

Asked about the group’s history battling over immigration, Brune insisted that the group had changed with the times. He pointed to Rubio’s involvement in the Gang of Eight, plus statements supporting reform from Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul. The Sierra Club’s stance is just “one more indication of how popular public opinion has shifted dramatically on immigration,” he said.

“This is an important piece of legislation that has significant consequences for the environment,” Brune said. “We felt it was important to have our position be made very clear.”